Open theism is growing
in popularity among evangelical Christians. In an effort to make God more
appealing to our society men like Greg Boyd, Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, and
John Sanders have promoted a God who “does not know every detail about what will
come to pass…[T]he future is, to some degree at least, open ended and God knows
it as such.”[1]
Is this a biblical view of God? Have these well-intentioned men simply
misinterpreted some biblical passages? Or is it much more sinister? Is open
theism heretical?

Before we answer those questions, let’s take a look at why these men (and
others) are promoting this view. Greg Boyd is perhaps the best known of these men and has been the
most successful in communicating “Openness Theology” to the church. In 1992,
Boyd published Letters From a Skeptic, a book in which he sought to
convince his unbelieving father that the Bible was rationally and intellectually
viable. This book provides tremendous insight into the motivation behind open
theism (at least from Boyd’s perspective). It becomes abundantly clear that
Boyd is trying to do away with the image of a God of anger, judgment, and wrath
by promoting a God of love, peace, and mercy. The Bible is clear that God is
all of these things and more. There is no contradiction in declaring God’s
wrath and judgment while at the same time affirming His love and mercy. In
fact, perfect love requires perfect justice.

Another contributing
factor seems to be an overreaction to the Calvinist’s view of God’s
sovereignty. Some Calvinists express the concept of God’s sovereignty in such a
way to make it seem that humans have absolutely no will of their own. Rather
than accepting both biblical teachings of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will,
many Christians have gravitated to one extreme or the other. Those on the
extreme end of Calvinism are often called “hyper-Calvinists” and it could
be appropriate to label open theists as “hyper-Arminians.” This is due to their
over-emphasis on God’s love at the expense of His justice and wrath. In the
same way, we believe the “hyper-Calvinist” overemphasizes God’s sovereignty at
the expense of His love and mercy.[2]
We will focus on the Calvinist v. Arminian debate in an article in the near
future.

Richard L. Mayhue[3]
wrote an excellent critique of Greg Boyd’s God of the Possible. Since
Boyd is at the forefront of open theism, Mayhue’s essay summarizes the
theological errors of the entire movement. In “The Impossibility of God of
the Possible”[4]
Mayhue lists eight reasons why Boyd and open theism fails:[5]

2)God of the Possible
depends upon philosophy, not theology, to prove its point.

3)This volume deifies man and humanizes God.

4)Boyd discards the unknown, mysterious dimensions of God in his
discussions.

5)The book is built with an aberrant methodology.

6)God of the Possible
dismisses the literary device of anthropopathism (ascribing human emotions and
feelings to God).

7)Boyd’s position diminishes the Almighty’s deity.

8)The author downplays determinative biblical texts.

Mayhue goes on to support
each of these claims and shows why “[t]hese alone dismiss God of the Possible
as impossible for evangelicals to embrace as a true biblical representation of
Almighty God.”[7]

Unfortunately, open
theism is gaining popularity, thanks in large part to Christianity Today
and the Evangelical Theological Society.[8]
Christians need to “test all things [and] hold fast [to] what is good” (1
Thessalonians 5: 21). Open theism must be compared to the Word of God to see
whether or not it can pass the test.

The Apostle Paul
warned believers not to be deceived by philosophy (Colossians 2: 8).
Unfortunately, Boyd and his openness colleagues have slipped into grave error by
basing their thinking on man’s wisdom (philosophy) rather than God’s Word.[9]
I am not completely against philosophy but the Christian must always allow God’s
Word to correct his/her philosophy rather than vice versa. Since philosophy
holds sway over theology for the open theist they are forced to reinterpret
numerous passages of Scripture and major Christian doctrines to fit their ideas.[10]

Perhaps the greatest
theological error of open theists is their low view of God’s omniscience. While
claiming to affirm God’s omniscience, open theists claim that God does not know
everything about the future because the future is not there to know yet. Boyd
stated, “But to assume He knows ahead of time how every person is going to
freely act assumes that each person’s free activity is already there to know –
even before he freely does it! But it’s not.”[11]
One may wish to pass this off as a matter of semantics but it is far more
serious than that.

To the open theist,
God is limited by time. The Bible teaches that God created time: “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1: 1). It could only
have been “the beginning” if time started at that point. Einstein’s theory of
relativity also posits that time is a physical property of our universe. If
there were no matter, there would be no time. Since there is matter then there
is time.

Open theists often
construct a straw man to knock down at this point. They claim that God cannot
look down the passages of time to see what an individual will freely choose to
do. This straw man betrays their misunderstanding of God’s nature. God is not
“in time” as we are. He transcends time. He is not part of His creation like
the pantheist declares. He is outside of it (transcendent) but can intervene
when and where He chooses. Since God is not physically bound to the universe,
He is not affected by time. As such, God does not need to “look down the
passages of time” to see the future. He sees the entire timeline at the same
moment.

To understand this
concept, consider the parade analogy. Imagine you are attending your town’s
Fourth of July parade. You stand on the sidewalk and watch the entire
procession go by. You see the beginning, then you see the middle, and finally
you see the end of the parade. From your point of view, the parade was linear.
The same is true with our understanding of time. It is linear. We pass from
one point in time (now) to another (future), then another, and so on. This is
not true for God. Go back to the parade. Now imagine you are in a helicopter
hovering over the parade. You see the beginning, middle, and end all at the
same time. This is how God sees time. He does not need to wait to see what we
will do in the future. He sees the entire timeline now.

God has staked His
reputation on His ability to tell the future. In Isaiah 44 – 48 God proves to
Israel that He is the only true God. Throughout this passage He refers to His
ability to prophesy with one hundred percent accuracy. “I have declared the
former things from the beginning…” (Isaiah 48: 3). The book of Revelation is
almost entirely about future events; many of which will be fulfilled at least
1,900 years after they were first declared. If we serve a “God who risks” then
He is extremely lucky at guessing the future. No, God does not take any risk
when He foretells the future. He does not need to. He has perfect knowledge of
every single free choice made by every single free being. He “knows” what will
take place in the future. He does not guess.

If Boyd and his fellow
open theists are correct, it will be very easy for Satan to make God a liar.
When the “man of sin” (Antichrist) comes on the scene Satan could inspire him to
act contrary to what Revelation says about him. Rather than beheading those who
refuse to worship him and receive his mark (Revelation 20: 4), Antichrist could
put them in the electric chair. This would nullify biblical prophecy and in
turn, make God into a liar.[12]

The open theist
usually responds by saying that God knows some future events, just not all of
them. He will bring certain events to pass but leave the other events up to the
individuals to whom He has bestowed the ability to choose. In other words,
certain events are predestined. They have to happen because God said they would
but to accomplish these things God will have to override the free will of
certain individuals.

Here is the ultimate
dilemma for the open theist. Their entire theology is based on man’s free will
as opposed to the hyper-Calvinist’s view of predestination. Yet at the same
time, they affirm the exact same thing they wish to get away from; namely, that
God will force or coerce certain individuals to do what He wants [i.e.
Antichrist will persecute true believers and Jews].[13]
This fact alone destroys the viability of open theism since it is founded on a
hopeless self-contradiction.

Open theism creates
other problems as well. A person’s view of God is extremely important. After
all, if one misses the mark on the person and/or work of God, the rest of his
theology will likely be askew.[14]
Robert Brow, a staunch supporter of open theology, wrote an article in
Christianity Today in which he proposed “new explanations for biblical
concepts such as divine wrath, God’s righteousness, judgment, the atonement –
and just about every aspect of evangelical theology.”[15]
If this wasn’t bad enough ponder the following statement by Brow: “‘the cross
was not a judicial payment,’ but merely a visible, space-time expression of how
Christ has always suffered because of our sin.”[16]
This is a classic example of how a warped view of God distorts the rest of one’s
doctrines.

We would all benefit
from Paul’s exhortation to the young evangelist Timothy.

Be
diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle
babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness…But avoid foolish and
ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord
must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility
correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them
repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to
their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive
by him to do his will.” (2 Timothy 2: 15 – 16, 23 – 26).

This passage instructs
Christians to avoid foolish disputes. Unfortunately, far too many Christians
have been led to believe that this exhortation means that we should not ever
attempt to debate or correct those who are in error. However, this is not the
case for Paul told Timothy to humbly correct those who are in error. This
critique of open theism is offered in that spirit. It is not meant to attack the
character or faith of any open theist but is designed to show them the error of
their thinking so that they may “escape the snare of the devil.”[17]

[1] Greg Boyd, God of
the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker, 2000) p. 8.

[2]
When we use the term “overemphasize” here we do not mean to imply that
God is not sovereign. We believe He is sovereign over all things. The
“hyper-Calvinist” seems to focus only on God’s sovereignty [i.e. God can
do whatever He wants to do with and to man.] They should balance this
with God’s other attributes [i.e. Since God is sovereign and
omnibenevolent (all-loving) then He will only do with and to man what is
in line with His nature to do.]

[3]
Mayhue is Senior Vice President and Professor of Pastoral Ministries and
Theology at The Master’s Seminary.

[4]
This article is available in .PDF format for free at
http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj12h.pdf The entire journal (Volume
12, Number 2) is devoted to critiquing open theism and is available for
download at http://www.tms.edu/tmsj01.asp.

[6]
We do not base our doctrine on church history but on the Bible.
However, one would be wise to study church history so that he is not
constantly trying to “reinvent the wheel.” Since open theism cannot be
found in church history [Socinus was a heretic who held a similar view
to Boyd’s] open theists should be extremely careful in what they
believe. In other words, if no Christian has come to this conclusion
after nearly 2,000 years, what makes open theists believe they have
finally reached the truth?

[8]CT has published several articles portraying open theism in a
positive light (it has also published some critiques). The ETS has
refused to take a stand against Pinnock and Rice causing some well known
members to resign, including Norman L. Geisler, a former president of
the ETS.

[12]God Himself established the rules for
prophecy. If a prophecy ever failed then the prophet was to be
considered a fake (Deut. 18: 20 – 22).

[13]Of course, this is from a
premillennialist’s perspective. It seems that many open theists are
preterists. However, this does not solve the problem for them since
hundreds of Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in the New
Testament. Each of these required the free decisions of individuals.
This brings up the same problem for the open theist, either God forced
these individuals to do what He said they would do [Antiochus Ephiphanes’
persecution of the Jews described in Daniel 11: 30 – 34] or He knew
ahead of time what these people would freely do. It is clearly
incredible to believe that God was lucky enough to predict the scores of
intricate prophecies found in the book of Daniel.

[14]This is not to say that every open
theist believes in the wrong God. We do not question Boyd’s or any
other open theist’s faith in Christ and His work on the cross. However,
we believe the next generation will reap the consequences of this
aberrant theology.

[17]It seems the devil has two purposes
toward people: 1) keep unbelievers from hearing and/or believing the
Gospel message and 2) make believers ineffective through his various
wiles – his favorite seems to be poor theology.